


Clovers

by absolutelyamethyst



Category: Kingdom Hearts (Video Games)
Genre: Gen, Kairi is a blessing but she misses her friends :(, Lea is such a mess, Sea Salt Ice Cream (Kingdom Hearts), Xion is here just really really vaguely mentioned, lonely beans, someone give this poor man a hug, un beta'd
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-11-11
Updated: 2020-11-11
Packaged: 2021-03-09 23:00:13
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,372
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/27504196
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/absolutelyamethyst/pseuds/absolutelyamethyst
Summary: It happens so quickly he almost manages to convince himself that he didn’t see anything at all--Kairi, something superimposed over her still-moving body, a shapeless silhouette that shifts into a girl with black hair and ferociously bright blue eyes.His heart aches. He forgets how to breathe.He knows the girl in front of him. He just can’t remember her name.
Relationships: Kairi & Lea (Kingdom Hearts)
Comments: 1
Kudos: 9





	Clovers

It was  _ so close. So close,  _ and sometimes, when he looked at Kairi, he could swear he was seeing someone else, an image that played on the edge of his periphery, like he was trying to see through someone else’s eyes. 

He’s not sure who he is anymore, sometimes, and it scares him, in a way that’s deeper than he could probably articulate.

He’s one person, but sometimes he’s two, and sometimes it feels like half of himself is missing-- _ gone-- _ even though he knows that isn’t true. He doesn’t know how to explain how he feels now. He feels...complicated, like not even the smartest person in the world could sum him up, and he doesn’t like that either but well….what’s he supposed to do?

Live. Keep breathing, keep moving. Keep  _ training,  _ because that’s a thing now, even if the hardest thing so far has been getting his damned ‘blade to materialize, and--

_ Anger, no--not anger, that’s what they tell him, because anger’s a fleeting thing that vaporizes in an instant, and the keyblade needs restraint--steadiness, a surety of heart that Lea’s starting to wonder if he even has at all.  _

Lea--Axel--is tired of days spent failing and getting his ass beat. That’s how he ends up getting the ice creams from Merlin. That’s how he ends up wandering the grounds to find Kairi--through winding pathways shrouded in forest, the sunlight filtering down through a cascade of green. 

Everything’s green here, which...strikes him as a little odd, but hey--the world is magic, who’s he to say how it should look? It’s pretty enough, he supposes. And quiet. And a good enough distraction.

He looks, but Kairi’s nowhere to be found. He wanders, and he’s grateful that magic is a thing because the ice creams are melting in his hand a little more with every step. 

He stops the moment he hears Kairi’s voice. 

She’s speaking softly, gently, a wistful edge to her voice as she talks to....whoever she’s talking to. He’s too far away to hear what she’s saying, but as he walks closer, careful not to disturb her, he still doesn’t understand her words. 

She’s talking to someone, but there’s no one there. She’s all by herself, alone in a field of clovers, rocks, and brambles. 

He lingers at the edge of the treeline, a single step away from making his presence known. Kairi could see him if she wanted to, but her gaze is fixated on the pad of paper in her lap and her pencil hasn’t stopped moving across the page since he stepped within sight of her. 

She’s still talking, speaking to nothing at the air, but her words are heartfelt and he can’t help but feel like he’s intruding on something important--sacred, private. 

...good thing he brought ice cream. 

He takes another step and a branch cracks beneath his feet, drawing Kairi’s attention, and he nearly melts under the weight of her sharp-eyed gaze. He masks his anxiety behind a sarcastic smile, smothers the apology that comes to his lips because he knows what she’d say, has heard it a thousand times, and lumbers forward, his head tilted. “Hey.”

“Hey yourself,” she greets him, the smile on her face pure, genuine. But then she doesn’t say anything, her gaze shifting back to her paper. 

He sits down, his heart beating nervously in his chest, and hides the ice creams behind his back. “Writing?” He asks.

She nods. “Mmhm!” 

And come  _ on,  _ can’t she give him something more than that? Can’t she see that he’s trying to make conversation--that he has absolutely no idea what he’s doing? He hasn’t had a heart back for  _ that  _ long, he’s not--

“Writing...a letter?” He queries further, desperate for some sort of noise in the empty, soundlessly emerald void. “To…” 

Kairi glances up at him. 

And, belatedly, he realizes that he probably could’ve answered that himself. 

“To Sora,” Kairi says. “Though...I don’t think I’m going to send it. It’ll be just for me.” 

“Doesn’t that defeat the purpose of a letter though? They’re...supposed to be sent.” 

“I know,” Kairi smiles. “But this one’s special. It helps, being able to talk to him.” 

And that was one of the differences between them, really--Kairi had come here knowing that all her friends were out there, somewhere, fighting battles that she wasn’t ready to fight yet. 

He’d come here knowing that there wasn’t a thing he had left to lose. 

“Brought these,” he said, taking out the ice creams because he’s tired of keeping the damn things cold. “I had Merlin get them, and--”

It happens so quickly he  _ almost  _ manages to convince himself that he didn’t see anything at all--Kairi, something superimposed over her still-moving body, a shapeless silhouette that shifts into a girl with black hair and ferociously bright blue eyes. 

His heart  _ aches.  _ He forgets how to breathe.

He knows the girl in front of him. He just can’t remember her name. 

He’s  _ failed.  _

“Lea?” Kairi’s up and on her feet and stumbling toward him in an instant, the paper pad on the log she was sitting on just a second ago, loose-leaf pages fluttering in the wind, holding on to the pad by a thread. “Lea, are you alright?” 

And he doesn’t know how to tell her that he can’t remember his name anymore, that he’s been confused for as long as he’s been human again, and that he’s long-since stopped trying to find his identity. That he’s floating, constantly, between a sea of regret and a sea of morbid panic. 

He’s human, he’s a keybearer, and there’s so much that should be giving him life now, and he can  _ barely remember his own name.  _

“I--” he blinks, tears falling from his cheeks, and winces as his whole face flames and he lifts a gloved hand to scrub them away. 

“Lea, you’re crying,” says Kairi, worry edging her tone. “What’s wrong? Are you alright?” 

“Somethin’s in my eyes,” he tells her, but it’s a lie and he’s almost absolutely certain she can sense that, so he turns away and realizes, at the last second, that she’s still holding her ice cream and that somewhere between the memory and Kairi’s cry, he’s dropped his own ice cream in the dirt. 

His heart feels like it could beat right out of his chest now, and the world is spinning and each breath’s coming a little harder. Kairi looks like she’s seconds away from holding him down and forcing him to sit again, and he can’t let that happen--can’t let her see what’s really bothering him. Can’t let her see--

His heart aches again, the pain sharper this time, and he stumbles away with an apology that’s awkward and mumbled and  _ ashamed,  _ and disappears into the trees without another word. 

Kairi doesn’t follow him. He didn’t expect her to. They’ve always been good at that, the two of them--knowing when the other needs space, knowing when to push. 

Kairi’s the one pushing, usually. He feels awful about that too. 

_ He can’t forget the girl he saw.  _

What’s  _ wrong  _ with him? He doesn’t remember being like this, before. Doesn’t remember much of anything before being a Nobody, really, but he doesn’t remember feeling this  _ lost  _ and he certainly doesn’t remember feeling this much to begin with

Having a heart hurts. He’s decided...he’s decided that he doesn’t like it. 

And maybe that’s why, just short of the treeline, he stops and finds Kairi’s gaze still on him, her expression still worried and concerned, and calls out a loud, “ _ By the way,  _ the name’s Axel, got it memorized?” Because he doesn’t feel human, doesn’t feel like much at all, really.

_ It’s right there. It’s so close.  _ But the memories are gone and he’s tried everything and he just ends up hurting over it anyway. Maybe there isn’t a point--maybe there is. Maybe he just needs to let it go. 

He shuts his eyes and takes a deep breath and when he looks up at the trees again, his only thought is of his ice cream--melted into the dirt now, and still sitting among the clovers. 

**Author's Note:**

> tysm for reading! leave a kudo before ya go!


End file.
